A Desert Called Peace

XIV.

Resolution 4999 (2127)

Adopted by the Security Council on its 16128th meeting,

On 1 June, 2127

The Security Council,

Recalling its previous resolutions, in particular resolution 4547 of 2107 and 4569 of 2108, concerning the situation off world among the colonies of Terra Nova,

Reaffirming its commitment to peace, prosperity and freedom as expressed and implied in the Charter,

Welcoming a just resolution to the ongoing conflicts on the planet of Terra Nova,

Acknowledging the difficulties inherent in administering and securing a world light years away,

Reiterating in the strongest terms its desire to accord self-determination to all mankind,

Stressing the importance of the recent peace accords between itself and various insurgent governments and movements on Terra Nova,

Welcoming the joint communique between its representatives on Terra Nova and the representatives of the United Front for the Liberation of New Earth,

Expressing its continuing responsibility toward the peoples of that world and its firm commitment to their continuing welfare,

Determining that the maintenance of its rule on the world of Terra Nova is beyond its abilities,

1) Retires its offices and security facilities to its base on the Island of Atlantis on the new world,

2) Requests a cease fire from all still-engaged armed or political agencies, governments, organizations and movements on the new world.

3) Reiterates its request for prisoner of war exchange and repatriation,

4) Directs the redesignation of its fleet around the new world as the United Nations Peace Fleet, to be further renamed the United Earth Peace Fleet at such time as the General Assembly may direct, and

5) Declares the conflict on the new world to be at an end.

Chapter Thirty We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,

We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, -Kipling, "Gentlemen Rankers"

Ninewa, Sumer, 10/5/462 AC

Fadeel al Nizal's problems had multiplied. On the plus side, though, at least Mustafa was no longer one of them. If anything, the relationship had reversed itself with Fadeel becoming a major financial supporter of the rest of the movement and Mustafa being along mostly for a distant form of moral support. Not that the movement didn't have money. It had a great deal, most of it untouchable for the infidel accountants who watched for the slightest excuse to freeze suspicious accounts. Even Fadeel had lost money that way.

He'd have gladly accepted a great deal more of Mustafa's former chiding if he could have eliminated some of the other things bearing down upon him.

For a while it had seemed that the willing cooperation of the Kosmos-the cosmopolitan progressives who believed in one-world government, under themselves- were the answer to most of his prayers. With the money gained from the crusader governments with the progressives' cooperation, his organization had flown as high as the aircraft he had managed to bring down early on in the campaign.

For a while, rather than having to listen to lectures from Mustafa, Fadeel had found himself in a position to repay the start-up money he'd received and even to make a substantial gift to his principle. That gift had been gratefully received, Mustafa having fallen upon rather hard times. Moreover, he'd managed to knock one crusader state, Castilla, almost completely out of the war. He'd failed to knock Balboa out of the war. That rankled. Worse, they were hunting down and killing his men. And the damnable locals seemed to be helping them do it, which was worse.

Unfortunately, the supply of Kosmo hostages had dried up completely. There were no more Taurans willing to volunteer, nor had there been since that one woman, Giulia Masera, had been fed feet first into a wood chipper and a tape of the murder turned over to al Iskandaria News Network. Fadeel was still puzzling over what had caused al Iskandaria to broadcast the tape. After all, they'd been wise enough to refuse to show the death of one of Masera's countrymen when he had defied Fadeel just before his well-deserved execution. At the time, Fadeel had been rather angry at the television network for refusing the tape. On reflection, though, he had come to agree that showing a citizen of the crusader coalition dying bravely and well would have been damaging rather than helpful.

At that, it would not have been nearly as damaging as broadcasting the death of Masera. She had been emulsified from the bottom up, her mouth opening and closing like a fish stuck out of water as she sank feet first into the wood chipper, her reddened, lumpy remains spitting out the bottom. Fadeel had rather enjoyed the show, naturally, but even he had seen it was a dangerous move for whichever comradely organization had been responsible.

That was another puzzle. Fadeel didn't know and had not been able to find out who was responsible for that execution. He'd thought at first that it must have been one of his own cells, naturally under very loose control due to the circumstances of the fight for God in Sumer. Not one of his people, however, had been willing to admit to it. Nor had any of the ransom money shown up.

I could surely have used another twenty-five million Tauros in the fight against the crusaders.

Not everything was going against him, fortunately. He'd had a few bad moments there, when the satanic Federated States had introduced automatic explosive sniffers. A number of bombs and great quantities of bomb-making material had been lost to the cause of the righteous and the just that way. Then the local mercenaries had brought in dogs to hunt for and warn of bombs.

The solution had been both beautiful and elegant in its simplicity. Fadeel had set some hundreds of young boys with small spray bottles to randomly spraying wheel wells of automobiles and trucks with water with which minute quantities of powdered explosive had been mixed. When everything smelled of bomb then nothing smelled of bomb. The dogs and the operators of the sniffing machines had been driven half insane, Fadeel and his followers had had a few good laughs, and more than a few crusaders had been enticed into the range of actual bombs.

Now the dogs were used only for tracking and the sniffing machines sat uselessly in a warehouse somewhere in Babel. Better still, the flow of explosives continued as it had before the infidels had tried their clever tricks.

Thinking about that, about the machines sitting idle and useless, set Fadeel to laughing yet again.

He sobered immediately. It wasn't enough to make up for the fact that after Masera's grisly execution the weak crusader governments had refused to give any ransoms. More than three dozen kidnappings and executions without so much as a drachma changing hands was enough to convince him it was a losing game.

Fadeel supposed that the charge of bad faith, after the Masera butchery, was enough to shield those governments from the domestic fallout of not paying.

When the governments had a reasonable and obvious chance to get "their" people back alive the pressure was tremendous. Now? Now nobody trusts us to deliver the goods.

Oh, yes, his people still went after the humanitarians and the journalists. The FSC even tried to stop them or rescue the peace-lovers in the other parts of the country. Here around Ninewa, for some reason, the Balboans generally didn't even make the attempt. And the other aid workers, the ones Fadeel thought might elicit a response from the mercenaries? Those were always too well guarded to even try.

Maybe they want me to kill off the ones I take. Something to think upon, anyway. Fadeel scratched his head in puzzlement. He was, at heart, a fairly simple man rather than a devious one. Grand strategy was Allah's job, not his. He was for fighting.

For that fighting he had a new recruit as well, though this particular recruit's time in the organization was destined to be short.

Ishmael Arguello, an earnest boy of seventeen, had taken the death of his mother hard. The younger of the two boys, and the handsomer if not the brighter, Ishmael had always been his mother's favorite. Moreover, Layla had been the center of Ishmael's universe. He had been cast adrift when Layla was cut down in cold blood. His father had been little help. No more so had his brother. School friends and teachers had been sympathetic, of course, and when one of the teachers had suggested continuing his mother's work Ishmael had decided that that was for him. The teacher had also, very considerately, put the boy in touch with a… recruiter, for lack of a better term. That was close enough.

The overhead fan turned slowly and quietly in Fadeel's basement office. He sat on a cushion on the floor, his legs crossed underneath him, feet pressed against thighs, while he continued to muse on his problems.

In some ways this enemy understands us very well, Fadeel thought, damn him. In other ways he is almost as ignorant as the rest of this crusader alliance. He knows, for example, that disadvantaging clans by killing some of their workers causes more discontent. Why he never followed through on that understanding to the logical conclusion that killing very large numbers of clan members would destroy his enemies and serve as a salutary lesson to other clans, I just don't understand. He knows, absolutely he knows, that we are a people who take revenge. Why he can't figure out that he should eliminate people who are sure to become enemies by reason of the blood of relations… well, it's just impossibly foolish.

I understand that in Taurus and the FSC, guilt and innocence are entirely individual matters because their people are individuals, individuals who can be encouraged and deterred by what happens to them, personally. But here, we are not individuals. No system of punishment can mean as much to us without a collective, blood-related, aspect.

Of course, some of the bastards do understand that. How many times have I had my men lost to the infidel because he rounded up twenty or so clansmen from clans sympathetic to the cause of Allah, tried them for crimes and threatened to hang them if information-oh, and captures, of course-was not forthcoming? More than I care to count. How many times have the clans captured, bound, and turned over my holy warriors to secure the release of their kin? I can count how many, but I'd rather not.

And now, instead of the insurgency being fed by locals as I had planned, I have more foreign born mujahadin than I do Sumeri. And the supply of foreign born will dry up, too, if the enemy ever figures out how to target their families back home. Pray Allah, they never shall.

Fadeel cut his musings short. He had people to meet, notably some new volunteers to the cause.

Ishmael was given some travel funds, just enough to see him to the next station on his journey. From home he'd traveled by bus halfway through Bilad al Sham, spending several nights in a safe house in the capital while there.

The safe house had been a shock after the spacious, well furnished and maid-swept expanse of his own home, back in Akka. Besides its being cramped and filthy, Ishmael had found himself with the first case of lice in his life.

If the quarters had been bad the food was… well, the less said about the food the better. The most that could be said for it was that it prepared a man for leaving this life without regret. After a few days of undercooked rice and goat with the hair still on, what was there to fear with death?

From the safe house, Ishmael had moved on to a school, of sorts. This was where he was to be trained. Surprisingly, his training, along with that of another four boys about his age, was not very military. In fact, based on the little Ishmael knew about the subject from his mother, it wasn't military at all. Certainly it was nothing like the courses of instruction Layla had told him about her having attended in her glorious youth. He never even saw a rifle, except for the two in the hands of the guards posted at the front gate to the school's walled compound.

Instead, Ishmael's training was ninety-nine percent religious, though whether the Prophet would have recognized it as such was debatable. It was geared, in the main, towards producing a young man willing to martyr himself. At that, the school was very efficient, especially when it had good material to work with.

"You came looking for martyrdom," Fadeel observed to the new recruits. "We shall help you to find it. More than that, we shall help your martyrdom to be of the greatest effect here on al Donya al Jedidah. To that end, each of you will make a tape. In those tapes you will explain yourselves and your commitment to the cause of Islam, Triumphant. The tapes will later be broadcast by al Iskandaria to inspire the masses and bring yet more volunteers. In the end, we cannot lose. There are over a billion of us; few of the crusaders."

Fadeel smiled benignly at the martyrs to be, the smile changing in a moment from benign to ferocious. Voice rising, he said, "By your courage, you will earn a place in Paradise and bring us victory here."

Al Kuwaylid Girls School, Ninewa, Sumer, 12/5/462 AC

Ishmael felt ridiculous. Worse than ridiculous, he felt dirty.

Bad enough they'd shaved his face and made it up to look more girlish. After Fadeel's people had rigged him with a suicide vest they dressed him in hijab and even added a veil! It hadn't been made any better by the profuse apologies and explanations they'd offered either.

Ishmael had grown up in liberal Akka. He didn't think girls were all that inferior a sex, or not more so than most boys anywhere on the planet would think. But for all that he didn't want to be one or to look like one.

They'd insisted though, harping on the theme of, "Your mother would be proud of you. More than changing clothes; she changed her entire face. " In the end, of course, Ishmael had gone along, letting them shave him, make him up, load him with thirty pounds of explosive and shrapnel laden vest and bra, and rig him with a radio so that his handler could direct him and talk him through his part. They'd even coached him on walking like a girl, easier to seem to do in a burka than in any kind of infidel garb.

He wasn't allowed to drive himself to the vicinity of the school even though he'd had a license for almost two years.

"You don't know the area," Fadeel's people had explained. "You don't know which checkpoints are tighter than a houri's hole and which are manned by more easygoing sorts. You don't know where to park. Besides, how can your control direct you if he can't see you? You don't have the right accent if someone stops you. No, Martyr to the Cause," they'd insisted, " we will drive you."

Ishmael had been dropped off around the corner from the school. Doing his best to walk girlishly he'd turned that corner, walked about fifty meters forward and joined the stream of girls-some dressed in burkas or hijab and others in more modern clothing-that flowed through the gate and into the school yard.

Once inside the gate the girls who wore them had begun immediately to remove their Islamic outer coverings. Several were quite pretty and shapely, Ishmael noticed, with big brown eyes being the norm. They spoke to each other in high musical voices he found most enchanting and…

"I can't do this," he said into the radio that ran from his explosive vest to an earpiece cum microphone. He turned to leave the school.

Sadly for Ishmael, more sadly for the girls at the school and their families, the radio had another purpose besides control. It also served as a remote detonator. With or without any words from Ishmael, the controller's instructions were to detonate it when a certain time had passed after Ishmael had walked through the gate or if it appeared he wanted to back out. That time was up. So was Ishmael's.

So was the girls'.

Balboa Camp, 12/5/462 AC

The bottoms of Carrera's and Sada's boots were stained red. That was as nothing to the red Carrera was seeing, a seething bloody red that arose to infuse his brain and cloud all his thoughts.

Fernandez was waiting for them at Carrera's and Lourdes' quarters. Lourdes was horrified, weeping. Carrera was simply outraged, though he mostly hid it behind an automatic stone mask.

"Have you seen the al Iskandaria broadcast, Patricio?" Fernandez asked, after Lourdes had dragged Carrera to a chair and forced a scotch over ice into his hand.

"No, why?" Carrera asked evenly.

"Our girlabomber was the son of that woman we had taken out in Akka, Layla Arguello. It was broadcast half an hour ago." Fernandez's look said more eloquently than could have any words, And that's your fault.

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Fernandez repeated. Neither he nor Sada bothered to remind Carrera of their advice concerning the family of the Arguello woman.

Unconsciously echoing Fadeel al Nizal's thoughts of a couple of days earlier, Sada observed, "Your Christian heritage of individual accountability has no use here, Patricio. It can never be of use in a place where the individual places so much importance on family ties. Moreover, you seem to insist that groups cannot be responsible for the actions of individuals. This is nonsense, my friend, and worse, it's immoral. Mothers and fathers raise their sons to be such and must be held accountable. Moreover, by your own laws of war you hold organizations accountable. When the organization is a family it is illogical not to hold them equally accountable."

Carrera leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It didn't help; he still saw a red-stained courtyard filled with the bodies and parts of bodies of young, innocent girls. I become just like my enemy, he thought. Well, so be it then. After all, I'm already better than halfway there.

"Is Fadeel responsible?" he asked.

"Clearly," Fernandez and Sada said together.

"Grab his family. Do it as soon as possible. Kill whomever we can't get at otherwise. All ages and sexes. Punish this motherfucker !"

"You don't really mean that, Patricio," Sada said. "We don't have to go that far."

"But you said…" Carrera began.

"I said you sometimes had to demonstrate a willingness to seriously hurt a tribe or family to control it. We can do that without exterminating it. Besides…"

"Besides?"

"You're not a complete barbarian, Patricio. Neither am I and neither is Omar, here. We still have to live with ourselves. We can be more selective."

Carrera breathed deeply, realizing what he had ordered. Jesus, what am I becoming?

"Thank you, my friend. Yes, please… be selective."

"Your boys, Adnan," Fernandez offered.

"Yes," the Sumeri agreed. "It will take a while to set up."

"Fine, so long as it gets done. I have to go to the FSC for a bit anyway."

Hamilton, FD, 21/5/462 AC

Campos was considerably warmer in his greetings than he had been the first time he and Carrera had met. He was practically effusive in shaking Carrera's hand and welcoming him back.

"Legate Hennessey, it is so good to see you once again."

"I go by Carrera now," came the dry answer. "That, or Pat."

"Fine, fine," Campos said. "I wanted to talk to you about your new and expanded area of responsibility. That, and the way you are conducting the war in your sector."

"For that," Carrera answered, "I could have spoken to your commander in Sumer or your ambassador. I didn't need to traipse halfway across the world with my… secretary. And I fight the war in accordance with the law, so don't bother."

Campos decided to drop the question of war crimes. After all, technically the legion did stay within the bounds of the law, at least insofar as anyone could prove. Shrugging, he continued with the important part, "Both General Abramovitz and the Ambassador thought it would be better coming from me. They seem to feel you're maybe a little hard to control."

"I am," Carrera admitted. "I'd still have at least listened."

"I'm sure you would have," Campos tactfully lied. "By the way, how many men do you have in Sumer now?"

"About seventy-seven hundred. And another five thousand or so back home, not counting those still in initial training. Why?"

Campos didn't answer directly. Instead he asked, "And we're paying you how much?"

"Now? Now it's fifty-five percent of what it would cost you to field an equivalent combat force. It was just under eight billion per annum. It's now over twelve. It's still a bargain for you," he added.

"Didn't say it wasn't," Campos conceded easily. "It's a great bargain. But…"

"But?"

"We need to adjust your sector from what we originally agreed to."

I should have seen this coming, Carrera thought.

"Show me."

Campos led him over to map spread across his desk.

"Going to cost you another one point two billion," Carrera announced when he had seen the border shift Campos wanted.

"We're already paying you the agreed rate," Campos insisted, growing heated.

"Let me point out that our current contract is not for major conventional operations," Carrera pointed out. He stuck his finger to the map, resting it on the midsized city of Pumbadeta, Sumer. "Your people lost control of that town months ago. To get it back… and…" Carrera thought for a moment before his face lit in a broad smile. "Ohhh, I see. You're having an election soon, aren't you? You need the town reduced before then, but you don't want to take any serious casualties before then, either."

Campos scowled but admitted the charge.

"Yes… well, our contract is for low intensity operations. This is something different. It's going to take a shitpot of ammunition, fuel, food, air movement. It's also likely to cost me a thousand men dead or wounded. For that matter, I really don't have the force yet. In another year I would…"

"We can't wait-"

"… another year," Carrera finished. "Yes, I can understand that you can't wait. Even so, I don't have the forces myself."

"We can give you control of three or four battalions of ours, provided you do the bulk of the actual clearing," Campos conceded.

"No, you can't," Carrera contradicted. "I fight my way. The old way. The true law of war way. You either can't or won't."

"I don't see…"

Carrera clasped his hands behind his back, turned from the map, and began to pace. "Do you know how I'd take that place?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he continued, "I'll surround it. I'll cut off the food. I'll announce what I'm doing and let leave only those I am required to allow out: the very sick, pregnant and nursing women, and such. I will check for actual pregnancy and actual illness. And I'll take my time about just when they'll be allowed to leave, too. After that, if any civilians try to escape I'll engage them and drive them back so that they help eat up the food. I will do my damnedest to destroy any food stocks I can identify, too. Any humanitarian effort to bring food in by ground will be stopped and the food confiscated. Any aerial attempt will be shot down; I do have that one maniple of air defense troops I've been using for checkpoints, after all."

He stopped his pacing and turned back to the map. One finger made a rotating motion over the spot of the city of Pumbadeta. "About a week or two after aerial reconnaissance informs me there isn't a dog or cat left walking the streets of the town-in other words when I am sure they've been eaten because the people are starving- I'll let the civilians out. The women and children, that is. No men will be allowed to leave, period. Then I'll let them starve some more. They'll attack, of course; it's a quicker death than starving. But I still won't let any out. And I will refuse to recognize any emissaries that try to surrender as lacking authority. Individual attempts at surrender will be treated as the civilians were. After all, if I can engage civilians and use them as a weapon to eat up the food, then the law of war, despite what it seems to say about there being an absolute right to surrender, makes no sense if it requires that I let men, potentially armed men, go. Anyway, no surrender will be accepted until I am very nearly ready to assault. Then I'll go in and kill damned near everything.

"Now, Mr. Secretary, are you suggesting that FSA and FSMC troops will stand for that? That they'll be willing to shoot up women and kids to drive them back to starve? I don't think so. What's more, you don't want them to. Remember me? I'm supposed to be the heavy in this play."

"But in any case, I can't do it. Not counting the river, the place has a perimeter of nearly thirteen kilometers or about eight miles. That's too much for me alone while still clearing the place and holding the ZOR I already have, even with the Sumeris that I, at least, was smart enough to keep under arms."

"Well," Campos answered. He didn't even want to think about the disaster of letting all the Sumeri ex-soldiers go. "Maybe you can and maybe you can't. But I am allowed, by our contract, to adjust your boundaries in accordance with your combat strength and what we pay you for it. And remember that the penalty clauses run both ways. So, Bubba, you own Pumbadeta anyway. How you deal with it is your problem."

Lourdes had expressed an interest in shopping and, since they had a couple of days before they had to return to Sumer and since Carrera knew the city-"I hate this fucking place!"-and she didn't, he took her on a shopping expedition.

He'd hired a car and driver from a limousine service, though he'd expressly insisted that they not be driven in a limo. "No damned tacky, nouveau riche, limousine bullshit," was the way he'd expressed it to the company. He'd also taken on three guards, fairly expensive, high-end guards, from a security company that was recommended to him by a friend in the War Department. A perusal of resumes led Carrera to call McNamara, who vouched for one bodyguard. That one vouched for the others.

Good as it's going to get, I suppose.

Lourdes had wanted to see the city as well, so the shopping trip began with a tour. For that, Carrera didn't need to hire anybody, though he took the guards along. He'd spent a few of the most miserable years of his life in Hamilton and knew where the monuments and museums were.

As they drove through the crowded streets, Lourdes looked out at the people. "The women all look so… desperate," she observed.

"They are," Carrera agreed. "This place not only has the greatest population, per capita, of young, unattached women in the world, most of them working for the FS government or companies that do business with the FS government, the women themselves tend to come here looking for husbands. And they're not just looking for any old husband. They want movers and shakers; rich and powerful men, preferably not too old. They have a hard time finding any and so their lives are lonely, and given the cost of living in this place and the need to dress for success the women here tend to become bitter and, yes, desperate very quickly."

The driver parked the car not very far from the War Department, in a multistory parking garage that attached to one of the major department stores.

Carrera expected Lourdes to head for "Ladies Fashions" immediately. He was surprised then, when instead she headed to "Children's."

Actually, surprised wasn't quite the word. Shocked silly? That came close.

"You're what?"

"About two months along, Patricio. You had so much on your mind I didn't want you to worry. Besides, I wasn't really sure until two weeks ago." She looked, unaccountably, shamefaced when she asked, "Do you mind?"

"Mind? Are you insane? It's… wonderful. But…"

"But?" the woman stiffened, waiting for the hammer to fall.

"What about your parents? We're not married."

Lourdes sighed. "Marriage would be… more proper, yes. But, in all the time you've lived among us you still haven't figured it out, have you? As long as I am your woman and you recognize the child as yours then marriage doesn't mean all that much extra. It's nice… it would be nice. But you don't have to marry me."

Carrera nodded. Yes, he'd known that at some level. He turned and asked a shop girl if the store had a jewelry department.

"No, sir. Sorry," had been the answer. "But there is a very nice one in the building next door."

"Let's try to do this as properly as we can, under the circumstances," he said to Lourdes, taking her hand and leading her to an elevator. "First the proposal: will you marry me?"

Her eyes lit up happily as she answered, "Yes, of course."

"Good. Be awkward otherwise. Now let's go find a ring. Then we go shopping for the baby."

It was after looking at the thirty-fourth ring that it hit him. Crap… two-edged sword. Now the enemy has something to use against me, if I go after their families. Note to self, security detail for Lourdes, soonest. Obstetrician, soonest. Bunker the living hell out of our quarters at Camp Balboa, soonest.

Later, in the hotel where he'd rented a suite, Carrera mentally kicked himself for not having noticed her breasts had, in fact, swollen noticeably already. She actually looked better than she ever had. Where she'd once been rather girlishly slender, now hips and breasts had both filled out a bit, making her look more womanly. Also more desirable, if that were possible.

He looked at her nipples, lovely pert things, and said, "If I sucked those as hard as I liked, I'm afraid I'd hurt you. And your breasts have got to be tender now. If I did hurt you by playing with them too roughly, I apologize."

She just smiled as she gathered his head to her chest. She had him now and she knew it.

"Suck them as hard as you want," she said in a husky voice. "Play with them as roughly as you want. I'll tell you if it ever gets too hard or too rough. Bu t… I like it… and they're there for you."

Ciudad Balboa, 23/5/462 AC

From Hamilton Lourdes and Carrera had flown north to Balboa. After the endless dun color of the Sumeri desert and the mud brick of both city and base, followed by the barren stone of Hamilton, the country that passed beneath the airplane windows looked almost shockingly green.

"I'd almost forgotten…" Lourdes whispered.

"There are reasons green is the more or less sacred color of Islam," Carrera observed. "It is very beautiful, though, isn't it? It'll be good to be home for a week."

The charter jet had landed and taxied to the military terminal on the other side of the airfield from the civilian one. Parilla, Jimenez, most of the staff and Esterhazy were there to greet Carrera and Lourdes. Carrera was unsurprised at being met by a band of pipes and drums. He was more than a little surprised that he was also met by what appeared to be a full infantry cohort, supported by tanks, and with aircraft circling overhead.

"It's the Taurans," Parilla explained, when Carrera's surprise became obvious. "Remember, there's a warrant for your arrest from the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court. The government is being openly ambivalent about it, but there's no doubt they'd like to see you and me both gone. And since the Taurans are here the civil government has started to use the police and military police to push us a bit. They've sacked some of our friends in the Civil Force and most of the rest are running scared. I can't go anywhere anymore without an armed guard. Neither can most of our higher commanders. I'll be glad when the base on the Isla Real is finished and we can move our enterprise there completely."

"The sale is going through then?" Carrera asked. With everything else on his mind in Sumer he hadn't really followed developments in Balboa as closely as he might have wished to.

Esterhazy answered, "Oh, yes. Ve haff already bought vell ofer half ze island, plus Isla San Juan and Isla Santa Paloma. Ve haff options on most of ze rest.

"Some of the gringos who built houses along the beaches didn't want to sell," Parilla added with a smile. "But we opened up about twelve square kilometers as an artillery and mortar impact area and, once their sleep started being interrupted nightly by exploding shells, they dropped their opposition and became, oh, ever so much more cooperative.

"For now," Parilla continued, "we have about half the casernes about half built. Sitnikov is over there supervising. In a year, or maybe a year and a half, we'll be able to move most of the enterprise to the island."

"Speaking of Sitnikov and his projects, how is the boys' school going?" Carrera asked.

"First stop on the tour that begins tomorrow," Parilla answered. "For now, we're heading to the Casa Linda where you and Lourdes can rest. We're having a big dinner for you two, the staff, and key commanders."

Puerto Lindo, Balboa, 24/5/462 AC

Balboa had free and compulsory education. Sort of. Between the need for parents, often poor parents, to buy school uniforms for their children, along with books, paper, writing implements… well, it was actually a fairly expensive proposition. That the country still had, despite this, one of the highest literacy rates on Terra Nova was testament to the value the people placed on education.

Still, it was an expense. So when a new school, the Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, had been created promising not only free uniforms, but free everything including room and board, many parents had jumped at it. The kids even received a small stipend. Not that it was open to everyone. Prospective students had to be male, of the right age, in perfect health, and pass what amounted to an IQ test. Only about one in five of the applicants had been accepted.

The academy was sited at an old stone fortress from the second century after colonization. The fortress looked out over an almost perfectly rectangular bay and had been intended to defend the bay from the Anglian and Gallic pirates that had once infested the Shimmering Sea.

A mix of Volgan, Balboan and FSC instructors and cadre manned the school. These, bright and early, were out with the boys on the fortress' broad green parade ground. The school commandant, Carrera, and Sitnikov stood atop a covered reviewing stand on one side of the parade field.

"They have academics four days a week," Sitnikov explained, leaning over to speak into Carrera's ear. He'd flown in the night before from the Isla Real expressly to show off his handiwork. "Two days are devoted to more military subjects. On the last day they rest, as the Bible insists. This summer will be their first. Half of it will be spent in a military course. The other half will be vacation at home… if they want vacation."

The school's adjutant, a crusty old Volgan, reported to the commandant. Salutes were exchanged and the commandant ordered, "Pass in review."

There was no band. Perhaps it could come later. For now, the green- and gray-uniformed boys sang wherever they marched, something they had apparently picked up from their Volgan instructors.

As the first company of about one hundred and fifty boys wheeled and began to march past the reviewing stand, Carrera heard them sing:

Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

Si hay sol o si llueve

Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

A muerte o victoria

Assaltamos el mundo con pasos fuertes…

Carrera looked upon the marching boys' dark faces and bright eyes with a smile. "Very good," he judged, nodding slowly. Then, turning slightly to Sitnikov, he asked, "The other five schools?"

"Next year two more will have been built. This group will be split into three, one for each of the schools. They'll be able to assume some of the leadership responsibilities themselves, which will allow us to use fewer cadre members, per capita. Teachers for civilian subjects are like beans; we'll just buy more. The following year the last three academies will be built. We'll split the student body again. After that, it's just maintenance. It's not particularly cheap, though. Each one of these kids costs about seven thousand drachma a year to keep clothed, fed and educated. When all six schools are filled with their full compliment of eighteen hundred kids it will cost almost eighty million drachma a year."

"Small change," Carrera scoffed. "Eighty million for nearly eleven thousand fanatical potential infantry? A bargain. Besides, we have the money."

But I have to take that fucking hellhole, Pumbadeta, to keep the money flowing. Bastard, Campos. Shit.

Enroute to Ninewa Airport, 27/5/462 AC

The legion AN-21 was something less than comfortable. Lourdes didn't complain, though, and Carrera hardly noticed. She slept with her head on his shoulder and he with his cheek resting against the top of her head.

Halfway through the flight, he suddenly sat erect, waking her and causing concern among the crew. He cursed himself for an idiot.

"Sorry, Lourdes," he apologized. Carrera then walked to the cockpit and asked if it was possible to make a telephone call to Hamilton, FD. Assured that it was, he gave the radioman/navigator a number to dial.

"Mr. Secretary? Carrera. I can do it. But it's still going to cost you the extra figure I quoted. And I am going to need those battalions you promised."

Pumbadeta, Sumer, 35/5/462 AC

The FS Marines never patrolled the streets of the city anymore, Fadeel was pleased to see. Moreover, whoever among the local police had not come over was surely cooperating anyway. Perhaps the entire family hanging by their necks from one of the bridges over the river had something to do with that.

This had not been the first family put to death in the city, of course, merely the first for whose execution Fadeel had been present. It had been a grisly, awful thing, even by Fadeel's atrophied moral standards. The father and mother had been forced to watch first as each of their five children, aged four to eleven, were hoisted up. The ropes were thick and the children light. After watching for a quarter of an hour of slow strangulation, the children's faces slowly purpling and their legs kicking frantically for purchase, Fadeel had told his men to hang onto the legs to put the kids out of their misery. Both mother and father had been too grief-stricken, horrified and shocked, thereafter, to even struggle as the ropes were placed around their own necks. They'd died more quickly and far more easily than had the children.

A small price to pay, however distasteful, to ensure the rest cooperate, was Fadeel's judgment.

And cooperation had indeed been forthcoming. Crews of conscripted civilians dug ditches and tunnels wherever they were directed to. Streets were being blocked off; mines, booby traps and improvised explosive devices were being set all across the city. More than twenty-five hundred holy warriors, too, had gathered for a climactic showdown. Best of all, the cost of stockpiling food for the coming siege-and there would be something like a siege, Fadeel was certain of it-had been borne by various worldwide humanitarian organizations. Since more than a few of these were Islamic, supply of ammunition had also been seen to.

We'll make the infidels pay a price in blood that will open their eyes to the truth, Fadeel thought, that they can never pacify and control Islamic lands.

Interlude

6 Jumadah I, 1529 (20 May, 2105 AD), Makkah al Jedidah (New Mecca), Al Donya al Jedidah (the New World)

Abdul ibn Fahad wasn't entirely comfortable with the new calendar system. He still went by the old, though he also-as a very holy man-kept both sets of religious holidays and festivals. That took up quite a bit of time. Worse, celebrating two Ramadans a year was exhausting. Fortunately, at least occasionally they coincided.

In twenty-one years they had coincided twice. In twenty-one years the population of the colony had blossomed. Not only did the women bear children in vast numbers, but every month it seemed new ships arrived bearing colonists from among the most faithful, the most traditional, back on Earth. The colonists, of course, brought many slaves with them to tend to the farming. It was well that they did so; the life expectancy of a slave was naturally lower than that for a freeborn man.

Sitting, as it did, at the confluence of two streams, Makkah al Jedidah was green and lush and lovely. This was as it should be, as this was a holy place, especially marked by Allah to be a reminder of the blessing of Paradise that awaited the Faithful.

Farther out, the greenery lessened. It was hardly noticeable to the new colonists, coming as they did from the barren deserts of Old Earth. As more people arrived, more trees had to be cut for their homes. As more people arrived so, too, they brought more domestic animals with them. These ate the grass. The goats, in particular, ate the grass down to the roots. Without trees, without grass, the sand blew. Already, one of the two streams that fed the settlement was noticeably shallower than it had been.

Abdul didn't worry about that. It is good, he thought, if by the Grace of Allah we return here to the desert from whence we sprang. Life has been too easy. Too much green and the faithful might forget that greenery is the gift of the Almighty. A green and holy Makkah al Jedidah should be enough to remind them of the bounty that awaits in the hereafter.

The hereafter was more and more on Abdul's mind of late. He hadn't been precisely a young man when he'd made the hejira to the new world. Now he was well advanced in years. Soon, very soon, his time would come.

Chapter Thirty-One I will leave your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your carcasses. I will water the land with what flows from you, and the river beds shall be filled with your blood. When I snuff you out I will cover the heavens, and all the stars will darken. -Ezekiel 32: 5-7

Northern Boundary, Ninewa Province, Sumer

It began with a gradual repositioning of troops along the boundary. From all appearances, this was merely an attempt to seal off infiltration into the BZOR from the insurgent held city of Pumbadeta. There were a fair number of firefights, mostly in the nature of ambushes, over the following week. Some of those were staged purely for show but some really did stop infiltrating vehicles and small units of insurgents.

The other effect the move had was that it placed the troops an average of fifty miles closer to the town. It also put them within one day's very hard march. Moreover, a fair amount of artillery was moved into range, ostensibly to support the interdiction line. Lastly, because the interdiction line was somewhat remote from any substantial place of habitation, it lessened the chances that anyone would report the sudden move away from that line, either by foot or by helicopter, in anything like a timely fashion.

Pumbadeta, Sumer, 1/7/462 AC

The stars were unseen through the cloud cover over the city as the remotely piloted vehicle made its pass. The RPV was nearly silent. Certainly, it was quiet enough that no one noticed it over the normal noise of the place.

Normally it might have been seen, of course, by any of the city's population of nearly three hundred thousand or by any of the now three thousand, approximately, of the mujahadin who had also taken up residence. The cloud over the city prevented that. The cover did not, could not, prevent the thermal imagers the RPV carried from seeing down and recording the town below. Among other things, the operator of the RPV, sitting comfortably in a cool adobe building in Balboa Base, was counting dogs and cats running free in the town.

Cloud cover overhead could not prevent the people, or the mujahadin, from seeing outward, though, as hundreds of helicopter sorties landed and took off, removing the FSMC troops who had been partially investing the city for some months. After giving the populace of the town a good look at the Marines leaving, the Marine artillery and mortars expended their white phosphorus and HC, hexacloroethane-zinc, shells to screen the pickup zones.

Thus, the mujahadin, no great shakes at patrolling in the desert anyway and very loathe to risk fighting the Marines in the open, really didn't see the men of the deployed cohorts of the 1st through 4th Infantry Tercios of the Legio del Cid as the men landed in the helicopters ostensibly coming in to pull Marines out. Nor, given the dark, did they notice that not all the helicopters inbound were of the types favored by the FMC's armed forces.

Camp Balboa, Ninewa, Sumer

In the cool adobe building, more of a bunker really, the RPV's controller watched his screen. He pulled back on his stick slightly and nudged it to the left, causing his bird to begin a slow left-banking spiral up to height. As it gained altitude, more of the city spread out below on the green-toned control monitor.

The city abutted the river at a spot where it turned south, then north, then south again to form an N. By that N, coming from the city to the west of the river and continuing on, was a highway that cut through the center of town. East were two bridges, close together. It was too far up for the RPV pilot to make out how many bodies were hanging by the neck from the spans. Previous flights had seen a variable number from four to, on one day, thirty-one. Some of those bodies had seemed very small, even to the distant pilot.

The town jutted out west of the river. It was almost rectangular and about three kilometers, north to south, by perhaps five, east to west. A multilane highway ran northwest to southeast, west of the town. The narrower highway, Highway 1, ran through the town from a cloverleaf on the major highway to the two bridges over the river.

As the RPV inched higher, more and more of first the city and then the surrounding lands became visible. Lights marked landing/pickup zones where groups of men, their body heat gleaming on the monitor, boarded hot-engined helicopters.

The command post for the legion was lit red inside. The usual ceiling fans turned slowly and, for the most part, silently overhead. Messengers and staff officers hurried to and fro on various missions. Not all of those messengers were legion troops, either. There were plenty of Sada's Sumeris and more than a few FS Marines. Briefings were being

conducted in three languages in different corners of the CP.

"I wish to hell my men and I were going in with you," the crusty FS Marine Corps colonel told Carrera.

"No, you don't," Carrera corrected. "Trust me on this; it's going to be nasty and the nastiest part isn't even going to be the fighting."

"Even so," the Marine countered, "It's going to be the best brawl since Gia Long, in the Cochin War. My boys will hate to miss it."

"Well… maybe we'll save you some. You just make sure that things here don't go to shit while we're gone."

"No chance of that," the Marine assured the legate. "I've got all three of my battalions, plus another two coming from the army, to hold down your ZOR. Plus, you're leaving me enough Sumeri and Balboan liaison that we won't exactly be strangers. And I'll have that one battalion of Sada's troops; they look pretty competent. We'll do fine."

I hope to fuck you do. Carrera was actually desperately worried about the situation in the BZOR. He, Sada and most of their troops were going to be gone for over a month, possibly two. A lot of unpleasantness could come to pass in even a month.

Still, they are FS Marines, good troops. Campos could have given me Tauros to cover my sector in my absence. Thank God for small blessings.

Landing/Pickup Zone Bluejay, 1400 meters north of Pumbadeta, Sumer

Carrera had had Jimenez flown in two weeks prior just for this operation. He'd been the first Balboan on the ground, arriving to coordinate with the Marines ten days prior to the shuffle.

A young tribune commanding a maniple ran from a group that had just debarked from a Marine helicopter and reported to Jimenez. "Sir, Tribune Rodriguez, Maniple B, 2nd Cohort, 3rd Tercio, Commanding. Where do you want us?"

"You brought the mines?"

"Yes, sir," Rodriguez answered. "Every man is carrying a couple and the helicopters left us six bundles with… well, shit, sir… craploads. Plus a fuck of a lot of wire and stakes. We can mine and wire maybe three kilometers. I counted the wire before we left. It was six hundred rolls and maybe fifteen hundred stakes."

Jimenez nodded. "Good." His finger pointed in the dark. "See that red chemlight to the right, Tribune?"

Rodriguez looked, saw it and answered, "Yes, sir."

"Your sector starts there and then works over to the left along the berm the FS Marines left us. You'll know when to stop when your line reaches the green chemlight to the left. Occupy and then move forward to just outside effective small arms range. Then mine and wire in. Don't forget to tie in with the units to your left and right."

"Yes, sir. I won't, sir. I mean, no problem, sir."

"Good lad. Off with you now."

There had been four Marine battalions surrounding the town. This was not considered enough to take it. It would have been enough to seal it off if they had really been permitted to seal it off. They hadn't.

Each of the Marine battalions was flying out by one or two pickup zones. The legion and most of Sada's brigade were flying in via the same spots. The continuous landing and lifting of masses of helicopters raised a cloud of dust that spread for miles downwind.